Fine Drawn Nuances
by Lys ap Adin
Summary: In which Xanxus realizes that she's going to have to use her actual words to get things between her and Squalo straightened out. Genderswap, Xanxus x Squalo.


**Title:** Fine-Drawn Nuances  
><strong>Characters:<strong> fem!Xanxus/Squalo  
><strong>Summary:<strong> In which Xanxus realizes that she's going to have to use her actual _words_ to get things between her and Squalo straightened out.  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Adult for smut in passing; 1611 words. Follows immediately on the heels of "Shifting Sands."

* * *

><p><strong>Fine-Drawn Nuances<strong>

Squalo woke up confused, not entirely sure where he was or what he was doing there, and spent a single disoriented second frozen in place and conducting a rapid inventory of his circumstances. Soft surface beneath him, cloth wrapped around him, unfamiliar light, soft breathing in his ear—oh, right. Xanxus. He was in Xanxus' bed, the one they kept for her at the main house. Right. Right, now he remembered. He didn't understand everything he remembered, but that was a separate problem.

"Hey." Xanxus' voice was quiet, her breath warm against his ear. She shifted and Squalo blinked, because they were (still?) twined around each other, and the reason that Xanxus' voice sounded so intimate was because she was cradling his head against her shoulder. "Sleep okay?"

"Yeah," Squalo said, fumbling through his disorientation, "Yeah, just... just fine."

"Good." Xanxus stirred again, carding her fingers through his hair, which felt really good and did _nothing_ to alleviate his confusion. Squalo relaxed into her fingers anyway, sighing her title against her shoulder.

Xanxus' chest rose and fell beneath his on a sigh. It didn't sound happy. Squalo tensed in automatic response to that and felt her fingers go still. Her voice was quiet when she asked, "What's wrong?"

She was asking him? Somehow that just seemed—wrong. Improper. Squalo cleared his throat. "No, I'm—good. Are you okay?"

She didn't answer right away. Instead, she resumed carding her fingers through his hair; the slow, insistent stroke of it began to lull him in spite of himself, until he was sighing against her skin, nearly moaning with how good that felt. It was only when he was sprawled against her, halfway to falling back asleep, that she said, quietly, "I don't want you to be afraid of me."

It was such a strange thing to hear that he wondered whether he _had_ fallen asleep again after all.

In any case, he protested. "'m not afraid of you, Boss."

Her fingers stilled in his hair. "I don't understand how you can say that when you think that getting off is something worth freaking out over." She settled her hand on his nape, rubbing her thumb back and forth and pressing it against his muscles just firmly enough that he couldn't quite manage to tense in response to that, couldn't quite drag himself up out of the strange, half-asleep haze wrapped around him. Since Xanxus was more of a tactician than she tended to let on, that was probably what she wanted.

"Boss," Squalo began, trying to stir against the weight of her hand, but she wasn't done yet. The pressure of her hand turned heavier, keeping him still against her.

"It's not, you know. Especially not when you've already gotten me off." Her voice was very quiet. "It's nice, don't get me wrong. I like it. But that's not why I take you to bed."

Not why she—what? Squalo tried to make sense of that, tried to figure out what she was getting at, and couldn't. If she didn't like getting off, why on earth would she spend so much time fucking him? "Boss," he said. "I don't—I don't understand."

Her chest rose and fell on another sigh. "Yeah, I've kind of noticed that." She held him in place against her, kneading his nape. "You... you belong to me. From the very beginning, you've belonged to me. I was never something you could—something you saw as a thing to possess. You never thought I was something you could own or conquer. You belong to me. _That's_ why I take you to my bed. That's why I—that's why you're mine. That's what I want from you. The rest is... it's all details. Okay?"

Because he—oh. But. _Oh_. Squalo had to take a slow breath, trying to sort out how he felt about that. Except there was one thing he did know for sure. "Of course I couldn't—try any of that. God, Boss, I'm not—I'm not stupid. You're—the things you are—they're amazing. You couldn't be—how could anyone try to conquer you? Who would want to?" He was babbling, maybe, but it was true. All of it.

Xanxus sighed against his ear. "You'd be amazed."

Squalo thought about an armoire filled with dresses that she would never wear of her own volition and the first time he'd ever seen her, standing over Vittore Barassi, and said, quietly, "Then they're idiots, because what you are—I—" The word hovered on his tongue and he wondered whether he dared use it. But. Fuck it, it was the truth, the one that encompassed everything else, and maybe she needed it more than any of the other truths he'd ever given her. "I love what you are, Boss. It's perfect. You're perfect."

Xanxus made a sound unlike any he'd ever heard come from her throat, something tiny and surprised. She gripped his nape, maybe forgetting her own strength, because her fingers were bruisingly tight where she held him. "You—" she began, voice hoarse. "Squalo."

He took a breath to steady himself and pressed his lips against her shoulder. "I do, Boss. Right from the start. I'm your man, every part of me."

She made another of those tiny sounds and pressed him against her, gripping his nape and wrapping her other arm around him. "Mine." She sounded breathless. "You belong to me, Squalo."

There was something in the way she said it that suggested a nuance he hadn't quite been able to believe was really there, before, a fine distinction in her meaning that made Squalo's breath turn unsteady. "Do I, Boss?" he whispered against her skin. "Do I really?"

"You do," she said, voice low and rough. "You're my own. My man. No matter what, okay? No matter what, you're mine."

Squalo closed his eyes and dared to let himself believe that. "Boss," he said, voice rasping in his throat. "Boss, I love you."

"Yeah," she said, her voice just as husky as his. "My own." She turned her face and kissed his temple, lips soft against his skin. "Mine."

Squalo shivered, overwhelmed by that, and pressed against her. "Boss," he whispered against her skin. "Xanxus."

She drew a breath; for a moment he wondered whether his own wonder had pushed him too far. Then she said, soft, "Yeah. Yeah, my own."

Squalo kissed her shoulder again, reverent, murmuring her name for the sake of how it felt on his tongue. Xanxus sighed and ran her fingers through his hair slowly, letting him do it, letting him kiss the smoothly muscled curve of her shoulder and the delicate line of her collarbone. She sighed again when he kissed her throat and leaned her head back, like she was encouraging him to keep going.

Amazement at that curled through him, twining around the way she held him and the way her claim reverberated through him, offering him a certainty of his place with her that he'd never expected to have. "Xanxus," Squalo murmured against the line of her jaw. "Boss."

She slid her hand away from his nape and spread her fingers against his shoulder, drawing him closer to her. "Yes," she said as he settled against her, and tilted her head so she could kiss him. She shifted under him as she did, drawing a knee up and running her foot up the back of his calf, the invitation clear. "My own."

That struck wonder through him all over again; Squalo set his hands on her skin, awed by her and the way she sighed his name as he touched her. "Boss," he breathed between kisses as she arched into his hands on her breasts. "Boss, _Boss_..."

She all but purred his name in reply; when he raised his head to look at her, her eyes were soft under her eyelashes, lit with a glow that stole his breath away. "Yeah." Xanxus lifted a hand to touch his cheek, her fingers stroking the line of it. "My own. My Squalo."

Xanxus drew him back down to her and kissed him again, slow, as she ran her hands down his body and murmured to him in open approval as he touched her in return. Squalo was dazed with the taste of her name in his mouth and the open way she responded to him, arching and moaning under his hands, her body sleek beneath his. She opened herself to him, wrapped her legs around him and pulled him against her, and groaned his name when he pressed into her. Squalo sighed her name against her lips and let her hold him close as they moved together, slow and easy. "Yes," she sighed when he kissed her throat. "Squalo, _yes_, I—" Her breath caught when he hitched her hips higher and slid his thumb against her, and her moan was hoarse and open as she arched against him, gripping his shoulders and crying out wordlessly.

Squalo breathed her name, caught by how beautiful she was as her pleasure swept through her. Then she opened her eyes to look at him, the expression in them soft, and he came all undone with that, breaking open for her as heat struck through him. Xanxus caught him as he did, wrapping her arms around him and holding him against her as he shook, murmuring against his ear, claiming him again and again until the sweet surety of that sang through him. "Yours," he breathed to her, lightheaded with it. "All yours, Xanxus."

Xanxus hummed to him, something as satisfied as a cat's purr, and pressed him closer. "Yes," she said. "Mine."

**end**

...and now that they have all _that_ straightened out, it's time to hit them with some plot. ^_^

Comments, as always, are a delight and joy forever!


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